posted at 10:31 am on April 17, 2014 by Ed Morrissey

“So many people thought they knew the governor,” Mother Jones reporter Andy Kroll told KOAT in Albuquerque, “and then went on to govern in a different way.” Er, she did? Susana Martinez has a 52% approval rating in New Mexico, according to PPP, and her re-elect polling has her with double-digit leads, according to RCP. Mother Jones wants to change all that by suggesting that Martinez is the next Sarah Palin, only with an extended vocabulary:

Here’s the MJ brief against Martinez, which argues that she’s foul-mouthed and hostile to women and Hispanics … which of course, she is herself in both cases:

During an October 2010 campaign conference call, Martinez said she’d met a woman who worked for the state’s Commission on the Status of Women, a panel created in 1973 to improve health, pay equity, and safety for women.

“What the hell does a commission on women’s cabinet do all day long?” Martinez asked.

“I think [deputy campaign operations director Matt] Stackpole wants to be the director of that so he can study more women,” Kennicott said.

“Well, we have to do what we have to do,” McCleskey chimed in, as Martinez burst out laughing. (As governor, she would line-item veto the commission’s entire budget.)

Yes — which was noted at the time, too. Oh, and she also questioned whether teachers got paid too much in relation to other public-sector employees:

The campaign emails and audio recordings also show how Martinez and her team strategized to maintain her straight-shooting image while avoiding actually being up-front with the public. Throughout the campaign, Martinez praised teachers and insisted she’d “hold harmless” funding for public education. In private, Martinez implied teachers earned too much: “During the campaign, we can’t say it, I guess, because it’s education, but…they already don’t work, you know, two and a half months out of the year.” She and McCleskey acknowledged that cuts to education could well be necessary, so her aides plotted about how to respond if they were ever called out for it once elected: “Put up a YouTube video that no one will ever see where you talk about making everyone feel the pain,” McCleskey suggested. “And when you win, we say, ‘See, we said this shit the whole time. What are you guys talking about?’”

“It’s on YouTube,” Kennicott said. “C’mon, bitches.”

Yes, I’m sure that in private, lots of people say things, suggest ideas, and make jokes that they wouldn’t make in public. And? What about teachers’ salaries — which are public policy — makes them so sacrosanct that public officials can’t even question them in private? It seems to me that we elect public officials to act as stewards of public funds, not as high priests and priestesses for the Church Of The Public Employee, where private questions and scrutiny require public beatings.

Indeed, there does seem to be a parallel with Palin. But it goes something like this: Just like the former Alaska governor, Gov. Martinez can be seen as a real threat to a liberal movement that has often hitched its electoral future to the “GOP war on women” narrative. (And as a Mexican-American Latina, Martinez may be viewed as an even greater danger.)

And just as a sort of Palin derangement syndrome led to all sorts of crazy antics — from Trig Trutherism to hacking her email — it’s not all that difficult to see this Mother Jones article as a harbinger of things to come.

Mother Jones actually did Martinez a big favor. They’ve raised her profile, and the attack will bring a lot more support from the national grassroots than Martinez may otherwise have attracted. By targeting her, they’ve also increased her credibility as a national figure. Assuming she wins re-election — and this little firecracker popped way too early to affect her chances in New Mexico — she’s going to get plenty of attention for the 2016 cycle now.

Blowback

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Nottakingsides, is trying to bankrupt a family with a Down’s syndrome child through frivolous lawsuits in order to drive its mother out of politics a tactic that you and your party particularly proud of?

It’a all a pattern. You’ve got Walker in Wis. with the charges against him, Perry in Texas with new charges against him in the same County that took down Delay, and now Martinez… Looks like they are systematically trying to take out potential Republican candidates…. Scared much are they?

sandee on April 17, 2014 at 11:16 AM

The only thing that scares me anymore in the political arena
is Republicans who DO NOT GET THIS!

WAKE THE EFF UP!!! These poeple are parasites, who will do
everything to destroy you. You have two choices,
Either Fight, of get destroyed. Why is this so hard for
people to grasp????????????????

ToddPA on April 17, 2014 at 11:34 AM

You could add Bob McDonnell and Chris Christie but they brought some of it on themselves.

This just after our last Governor was run out of the Presidential primaries because of his affair and it’s cover-up. And the FEC investigation that suddenly disappeared. $200,000,000 for a Space-port-to-nowhere. $600,000,000 for a white elephant commuter train. Busted budget. Impending bankruptcy doom from our public pension scheme that our Democrat dominated NM State legislature has never actually funded. All this thanks to Bill Richardson and the Democrap party.

And mother jones is upset she used the f word?

oldroy on April 17, 2014 at 11:09 AM

Oh, but the Democrats were just trying to do their best to make NM a “better place” to live.

They can’t say that about any Republican, because Republicans are EVIL.

Nottakingsides, is trying to bankrupt a family with a Down’s syndrome child through frivolous lawsuits in order to drive its mother out of politics a tactic that you and your party particularly proud of?

cbenoistd on April 17, 2014 at 2:55 PM

And you are proud of a reality show clown doing failed bus tours and book signings?